


Lexicon

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:33:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2312999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shunsui needs a diversion and resorts to word games. Ukitake isn't entirely immune to his pillow talk.</p><p>One-shot.</p><p>(Posted to update works on this archive.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lexicon

Jyoshiroh was reading one of those dreary books, a thick paperback with a glossy white cover, some stark black title of nebulous meaning, and fine pages filled with column after column of tiny, tightly spaced typeset. He and Shunsui sat, tucked under a fringe of trees at the water’s edge. Dogwood and syringa rode heavily on the humidity, cicadas rattled in a nearby copse, and frogs _breeked_ from cooler regions of the banks.

“I’ve been trying to remember the first time we made love.” Shunsui waved his _sugegasa_ in front of his face in place of a lost fan—slow, rhythmic movements inducing the midsummer’s torpid hypnosis into an even lazier stupor. “I can’t recall.”

Jyoshiroh didn’t look up, but licked his finger and turned one of those pages just as a soft wind lifted filaments of his hair. His hand came back to stroke them behind his ear, not quite successfully. Shunsui watched them glimmer in the sun like spider trails.

“It was always one of those things that I never thought I would forget.” An unusual edge to Shunsui’s voice contrasted against the soft slaps of water against the wooden pylons of the Torii gate.

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Jyoshiroh lifted the book up so that it completely blocked Shunsui’s view of his face.

“After all, I never forgot the first Hollow I bisected—,” Shunsui refused to take the hint, “—the first traitor I suppressed, the first skirt I chased. Funny how I could let those go without a moment’s regret, but this—This, I never wanted to lose.”

A tiny curl upward at the corner of Jyoshiroh’s lip betrayed him.

“You think this is funny?”

“No, I think it’s sentimental. You phony, always acting as if you’re sentimental.”

The big, softspoken powerhouse of a shinigami rolled over, onto his stomach, lifting his weight onto his elbows. A set of warm brown eyes tried to melt his cooler companion. “One of my more endearing traits, heh?”

“Don’t try that on me, old fox. I said “you _act_. I never said you _were_.”

“Cruel iceberg of a death-god.” There was a satisfied purr in Shunsui’s voice, since Jyoshiroh was fully focused on him now.

“Why worry about it? After all these centuries, I expect things fade as other more meaningful memories replaced the earlier ones.”

“More meaningful?”

“Yes!” Jyoshiroh started to sound irritated. “Like that time after the battle at the saltmarshes.”

“Right, you tied me down and—”

“Unohana forbade you to move.”

“—spent the entire month waiting on me hand and foot. Day after day of having love carefully, beautifully, masterfully made to me.”

“You needed to stay absolutely still in order to heal.”

“One of the happiest months of my life. I was almost tempted to go out and do it again just so we could repeat—”

“I will personally kill you if you ever pull another stunt like that.” Jyoshiroh swatted him with the book. The fear and pain in his eyes said everything.

Shunsui caught his hand and planted several tiny kisses on his wrist and palm by means of asking forgiveness.

“Monster!”

Shunsui pulled himself to a sitting position, bracing his back against Jyoshiroh’s to gaze out over the mouth of the harbour. Sailboats glided over the water, red sails unfurled like petals. Seagulls and cormorants glided above them, at play with the wind. “You don’t think that the first time between lovers counts as something particularly meaningful or memorable?”

“In general?” Jyoshiroh licked his finger and turned another page, causing Shunsui to wonder when, during their conversation, he had had time to read them. “Or between us specifically?”

“You’re being evasive.”

Jyoshiroh finally put down the book with a huff of irritation. He shuffled around so that he and Shunsui sat facing each other.

“No, I’m not. It’s just that this doesn’t bother me like it seems to bother you. I’m not the shepherd of your memories. I’m not here to corral meanings from them. So other encounters between us have driven off our first time. So what? Why would that upset me? I can’t understand why it distresses you.”

“I was trying to remember if it happened on a day like this: burdened, moist, everything thick with heat, in the Academy dojo, after everyone had gone back to their barracks—”

“No, that was a different time. Our first time was in the forest, on a patch of moss—the coolest place we could find.”

“But I distinctly remember urgency, the need to undress you, the need to feel my skin sliding against yours. Don’t you remember how I tore your hakama?”

“Tsk, it was too hot for hakama. I had worn a light yukata—too light, as it turned out. You caught the silhouette of my legs through it, and went off like a rocket. I didn’t even get a chance to untie it before you reached under, yanked it up, and started rubbing yourself between my legs like a—”

“Ah, that’s right. Was that when Yamamoto caught us?”

Jyoshiroh shot him a sharp look. “Yamamoto never did any such thing! Now you’ve not only lost track of when we first made love, but who you happened to be coupling with whenever it was he caught you.”

“It is one of those things which disappear into the vacuum.” Shunsui reached over and slid stout fingers along the backs of Jyoshiroh’s calves, over the finely woven cotton with its silky texture. “Instead, I remember things like butterfly wings.”

“Ugh, there you go being sentimental again! That is so clichéd, it doesn’t bear repeating.”

“But my mind was saturated with the colour of your kimono as it parted.”

Jyoshiroh shivered. The heat and power of Shunsui’s hands turned his resistance to water. It drained from his limbs, leaving them soft and compliant. His knees drifted apart, driftwood diverging on waves.

“And the boughs of birches.” Shunsui's words flowed together perfectly with the images he summoned in Jyoshiroh's mind. He had a gift for it. His fingers slipped from fabric to skin so seamlessly, Jyoshiroh felt as though all the nerves coalesced under his touch, that they drew life from that touch. He held his breath, as all his hairs stood on end.

“M-muscles?” His mouth had become strangely uncooperative. “You are comparing my muscles to hard knotted branches?”

“White thighs which were the colour and texture of birch bark.” Shunsui pulled himself between Jyoshiroh’s legs. “Have you ever touched a birch tree for curiosity’s sake? It looks like paper, but feels finer, almost the texture of skin, almost as though waiting to be caressed.”

As Shunsui’s hands moulded around the curves of Jyoshiroh’s backside, the fingers grew firm and began to knead. The rubbing and tugging pulled lightly against other sensitive muscles, which reflexively started to relax and open.

“I know what you’re trying to do, you scoundrel!” Jyoshiroh accused a second time, even as he sank onto his back, giving Shunsui better access. Gusts of breath punctuated his words as he said, “You’ve run out of sake, so you’re looking for another diversion.”

“Sake!” Shunsui ran a stripe of moisture up the length of Jyoshiroh’s thigh.

“Mm, your skin tastes like it.” He smacked his lips once with gusto before lowering them over Jyoshiroh, “Intoxicating!”

“Enough with the cheesy lines,” Jyoshiroh choked out as he arched under Shunsui’s tongue. “Generic stuff, just because you can’t remember the specific—”

Shunsui chuckled as he pulled up on one long suck. The vibrations shot through Jyoshiroh.

“No. Each and every time has its own distinct lexicon: moonlight, sunlight, the velvet black of night. Sometimes forest duff. Sometimes blankets.” Shunsui leaned over for kiss. “I just need to remind myself of all those differences more frequently.”


End file.
